Magnet tuner implant for singers, and the problems....

JohnDoe

Okay so I was playing with magnets and I had two of them stuck to my little finger, one on my nail and one on my pad. I was able to feel my guitar strings vibrate, microwaves, other magnets yada yada.... That got me thinking if I couldn't use a wave spring and two magnets to create a passive implanted tunner into the neck along my larex. The problems at the moment are:
-I can't put a tourniquet on my neck and live, so controlling bleeding is my main concern. I have no clue as to how I may do this but I am thinking that I may see a plastic surgeon. Please tell me anyone has any better ideas.
-The design I have is simple in theory, two attracting magnets a wave spring about 3/8 in long under pressure. The problem lies in the fact that the whole thing moves like a lot. I have thought about useing silicone (see bullet point three) do to the lower stress it will be under.(compared to a finger)
-Coatings are not normally made to flex like this I am worried TIN will flake off, this coating will need to be as flexible as possible. Maybe a bio glass tube sealed with silicon on the ends to make a dumbbell like shape.
All thoughts and suggestions are appreciated, particularly on controlling bleeding.

Sincerely,
John Doe

McSTUFF

Are you sure this was due to the springs being separated by something squishy? It sounds like you were just feeling the same thing on each side of your finger?

What would be the advantage to sensing magnetic fields through your neck? I know you're trying to get a built-in-tuner but are you trying to vibrate your vocal chords at the same rate as a guitar string?

JohnDoe

No what I am trying to do is create a sensation that changes with pitch I have already explored a alternative design just didn't think to update thread. The new design uses a pair of Pizo sensors as pickups and a buzzer as the output which creates the sensation in my neck. My ultimate concern is to keep the device as passive as possible. I didn't at the time think that I was just feeling the sting vibrate. In all honesty I got overly excited and don't think this through completely, I am trying my hardest to learn to sing because my wrist is not getting any better in fact I will even say it is getting worse. So singing is getting super important to me....

McSTUFF

So you want to feel your vocal chord vibrations more intensely?
I understand that. We sound differently in our head because we're piloting the vehicle making sound. We usually sound higher pitched when we listen to recordings of ourselves because we can hear vibrations coming through our bodies. You probably know this but I'm putting my thoughts down so people know where I'm coming from. Similarly I heard that throat mics or bone conduction mics can show people what we sound like in our heads.
I don't know that sensing vibrations from your larynx is going to give you a heightened sense of tone recognition but I would love to be wrong. tDCS has been shown to improve tone recognition but you probably knew that too.
I guess the easiest way to test would be to attach a throat mic to an amplifier and run some tiny transducers to your neck.
Your passive system seems like it might be trying to violate thermodynamics or I'm misunderstanding. How would driving a buzzer from piezo elements create usable vibrations?

JohnDoe

The system would kill any need I for resonance granted it will still be there, but my point being Pizo pickups are what are used in acoustic guitars, granted that that is then amplified, but this is also has way lower power requirements.
LINK:
http://makezine.com/projects/make-38-cameras-and-av/piezo-contact-mic/
I like you throat mic Idea though.

Cathasach

As a long time singer, from earlier than I can remember through 10 years of choir in school, I don't see how this would help with singing. Learning pitch isn't helped by having it fed to you through some other form, although I have been thinking of trying this the other way, playing myself various pitches and then vibrating my finger magnet along at the same frequency, to increase my sensitivity with the magnet.

Putting anything in your throat near your vocal chords is something that literally ever singer out there will instantly tell you is a bad idea. The potential for infection means you could lose your voice altogether, or just lose the ability to sing.

All that aside, I found that just having two magnets within the right distance from each other, on in my finger one not, makes for an amazing experience. In my case it was my partners magnet and mine and we had greatly increased sensitivity to the point that I'm considering making some sort of ring that has a magnet in it to recreate that on my own.

Cathasach

Point being that they don't need to be linked by a string, they could be just implanted at the right distance from each other and then they will vibrate sympathetically with each other achieving something like the effect you're talking about.

JohnDoe

@Cathasach
You made good points but here is my problem I have been singing scales with my vocal coach for 4 months and have got no ware. Hence why I am going to such extreme measures, the spring was to prevent them from ever coming together and causing trauma.simler to what you have suggested. I thought about a magnetic tunning fork but wouldn't that only be one note?

JohnDoe

I guess you could self tune aroun a 440 frequency, still wouldn't want it in my finger. Could find anoth nerve hotspot like the back of the hand. Only how would I engage it?

Cathasach

My partner, also a musician, pointed out that some violinists can feel notes in their fingers. Having a contact mic send the vibrations to your finger, with some alteration/distortion to make it understandable. The finger is more sensitive than the throat so it should be more clear in the finger.

I don't know what people have developed for feeding a signal to the finger though. Does anyone know what they use for the bottle nose?

Or just switch to the accordion. 

JohnDoe

Okay that is a good thought I will look into it more.

ElectricFeel

I think the bottlenose uses an unshielded inductor as a electromagnetic source.

McSTUFF

I have taken the electromagnet from a 5V relay and powered it directly off an Arduino pin with no problems. I can feel it in my magnets as long as the electromagnet is right over the implant.
This post has a few clear pictures of it. [LINK]

Cathasach

Would that work on an arduino with a 3.3V output? Could I just use a 3V relay instead? I only ask because I've got a could adafruit GEMMAs and a FLORA kicking around that I'd like to use for a project.

McSTUFF

A 3.3V relay may work. I haven't tried it. Since you're probably pushing similar amperage through the coil it may work just as well as the 5V relay coil. If you're using a USB stick as a power supply you can use a transistor driven by the output to switch current to a 5V relay coil.

ThomasEgi

be sure to add a protection diode (antiparallel to your relay). Relays are coils and those are inductive. Turning off the current will cause a high voltage spike of reversed polarity. If you don't short it with a suited diode you will fry your arduino's IO pins. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flyback_diode 

Place it as close to the coil as reasonably possible.

McSTUFF

Good point, @ThomasEgi. Industrial relays, which are controlled by industrial controllers, PLCs, have the protection diode and those industrial controllers can take a beating anyway. I should have thought to include that.

JohnDoe

If there was a spike could it possibly harm the magnet or digit(s) the magnet is in, or even go as far as to arc?

McSTUFF

@JohnDoe, we're not dealing with that magnitude of power so frying a controller board would probably be the worst case scenario. This would only be powered by a little battery, probably less power than a 9V so if something started sending current through your finger you might not even feel it. Even then it would be considered a catastrophic failure of the device.

JohnDoe

Okay thanks, getting my implants a a few months....

McSTUFF

To people with a musical ear:
Would it help singing if you knew when you were right on a note? For example, if you holding a note that was exactly middle C it would light up or vibrate. It would also vibrate at C# and B.
Would it be more helpful if it was only in a pre-programmed octave which the singer would decide?
Would it be more helpful if it only responded to whole notes?
Music is not my forte so I appreciate any input, especially if it is phrased like you're speaking to a grade 2 music student.

JohnDoe

I will sing into my guitar tuner sometimes. That is not viable for a live show obviously, but it is about the only time I can sing in tune.

McSTUFF

HUD with a tuner display!

JohnDoe

There are (in punk/hard metal) rules of live presentation, it would be fun to piss off all the critics by pulling a stunt like that. There was a therapy that was supposed to make a magnet more sensitive that @cassox started, pretty sure it as a alternated neurotoxin but I would still try it, most likely. And just place the magnet in my forearm and have a bracelet that would house the tuner feeding me data captured from the PA system. Maybe have a blue tooth module, or even better use monitor earbuds,(something I would have in anyway and have me and the tone (note/pitch) fed into my ear at once. It would be more like tuneing guitar than singing....

Sincerely,
John Doe

McSTUFF

My friend has a magnet in his wrist so he could wear different sensors depending on what he wanted to measure. He used my distance sensor (Bottlenose copy) and the relay coil was enough to trigger it. If that helps you decide where to place a magnet it has been done.

JohnDoe

How far up from his middle knukle?

McSTUFF

I believe his magnet is on the far ulnar side of his wrist. There is a small spot without bones or tendons which is sensitive.

JohnDoe

What about along the funny bone? I will consider that as well.

McSTUFF

I'm no doctor but the funny bone is a nerve cluster in a joint. Your risk-VS-reward ratio seems pretty poor there. Start with a wearable that does the same thing to see if it even works. If having a haptic tuner doesn't help the whole point is moot.
I know you won't give up music but experimenting with homebrew surgery near a nerve cluster seems unwise to me.
If you can find a digital tuner with LEDs try hooking a vibrator to the LED output and see what happens. Worst case is that you break a cheap tuner and a pager vibrator.

JohnDoe

Have both, will work on it when things settle down for me. Or more likely when I get home.... Thanks for your advice I would probably have hurt myself pretty bad doing this.

ThomasEgi

If you were to touch the coil's contacts with no snubbing diode you can certainly get a mild electric shock. We'r talking about 300V with an overall low amount of total energy. However, with a diode in place, you'r perfectly safe. No harm done to the magnet as far as I can predict tho.